Room to Write

13Jun

Twelve years ago, my wife and I purchased our current home with the idea that it was a blank canvas that we could make into our own. All the walls were white. Okay off-white, the previous owners were all chain smokers. Fixtures were mostly gold finish and worn out. The carpet reeked for dogs and cigarette smoke. The yard was a mess with sparse grass and one lonely peony in the back yard. So a few months ago we finally began work on the last room, my study/writing room.

I asked the CEO of my domicile what she wanted to do with this room. Her reply stunned me, “Whatever you want to do. It is your room and I want you to be happy with it.” God bless this woman who let’s me live with her!

Immediately, I started to fantasize about all sorts of interesting, and expensive, things we could do to give me the room of my dreams. However, she doesn’t call me “The Dream Squasher” for nothing. I am the CFO of the domicile so I am well aware of what I can and cannot spend. So, many of my dreams vanished into a puff of smoke. 😦

That’s okay, I am a list maker so I started to make a list of necessities: Desk with ample room to spread out notes and journals, comfortable chair, laptop computer with external oversized monitor and external keyboard, shelves for books that I cannot part with, oak 4-drawer file cabinet (new purchase), stereo system and wide variety of music (that’s a whole different post), soft overhead lighting, views of our backyard waterfall garden and side yard japanese garden, and a bulletin board for story-boarding.

Then comes the accessories (no new purchases): Bison skull, prints by Bev Doolittle, swords and knives I have made and collected, longbows, quivers and arrows, collection of Native American pottery, portrait of the CFO in his renaissance costume, medicine bag, antique cuirass, English war hammer, various (fantasy, Celtic, Native American) sculptures, and most important a photograph of the CEO.

It took about two months to finish it but it is now my very favorite room in the house. Unfortunately, I have been unable to use it much due to other life altering events keeping me away. The good news is the sea has calmed somewhat and I am spending more time in my new sanctuary. The words are beginning to flow more freely.

I still write during my lunch hour but I find myself daydreaming about sitting behind the three feet of oak and listening to my favorite russian composer. Ah…pure bliss.

My short list includes: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky. Even though he is actually Norwegian, I like to include Edvard Grieg. If this group cannot cause inspiration, you must be dead. 🙂

Heh – my wife sometimes calls me ‘the human handbrake’ 🙂 Having a dedicated writing room is a great advantage for creativity- I have one, currently with a few WWII German AFV models for decoration (don’t ask). Yours sounds great.

I have a funny feeling that rooms of this variety, minus the writing interest, get dubbed ‘the man cave’. Here in New Zealand they are also known as ‘the back shed’…